As sensor-based applications and use cases become more prevalent in electronic devices such as smartphones and wearable devices, the need for sensor hubs is increasing. A sensor hub is a device, such as a microcontroller unit, coprocessor, or digital signal processor (DSP) that assists in the integration and processing of data from different sensors before providing the sensor data to a radio or application processor in the electronics device. By off-loading these tasks from a main central processing unit in the electronics device to a sensor hub, the battery consumption and performance of the electronics device may be improved.
While sensor hubs may reduce power consumption of the main central processing unit of the electronic device, the sensor hubs also consume power. Moreover, sensor hubs are sometimes required to implement always-on, always-aware sensing in electronic devices, which may use a considerable amount of power, even when the electronic device is not being actively used. As battery life becomes an increasingly important consideration for electronic devices, it has become desirable to reduce the power consumption of the sensor hub itself.